Motivation Theories And Psychological Strengths And Factors That Underpin Performance

theories have been developed by psychologists, they are all used to explain what gives human motivation or the drive to behave a certain way.

According to Herzberg, individuals are not satisfied with lower-order needs at work, for example, those associated with minimum salary levels or safe and pleasant working conditions. Theses individuals look for the gratification of higher-level psychological needs such as achievement, recognition, responsibility, advancement, and the nature of the work itself. Motivation-hygiene theory, based on the presence of one set of job characteristics or incentives lead to worker satisfaction at work, while another and separate set of job characteristics lead to dissatisfaction at work. Moreover he found that job characteristics related to what an individual does is the nature of the work he performs, having the capacity to gratify such needs such as achievement, competency, status, personal worth, and self-realization, leading to satisfaction. However, the absence of such gratifying job characteristics does not lead to dissatisfaction. Instead, dissatisfaction results from unfavorable assessments of such job-related factors as company

The first level of the hierarchy is the physiological needs, which include, the need for food, water, shelter and warmth. Most people should achieve this as a baby. These are the needs that are necessary for survival. Without these it is impossible for a human to function.

Motivation is defined as a want or need which directs towards a goal or something that someone wants. Motivation is an inherent response; it comes from inside and cannot be imposed from the outside, and comes from

Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist and a founder of humanistic psychology who developed the Hierarchy of needs. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a description of the needs that motivate human behaviour. In 1943, Abraham Maslow proposed five different kinds of human needs, beginning with the most basic: survival. Physiological needs, such as food and shelter, are followed by needs related to safety. Next, there are needs of love and belonging. Fourth, humans have needs of esteem, such as the need for being respected. The final need in the hierarchy is the need for self-actualization (fulfilling one's potential). The hierarchy suggests that basic needs must be met prior to less basic needs; for example, a starving person will seek food before self-actualization.

Motivation is the various drives within or environmental forces surrounding individual that stimulate or attract them in a specific manner.

This Hierarchy of Needs theory was found by a psychologist Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation”. The crux of the theory is that individual’s basic needs must be met before they become motivated to achieve higher level needs.’

First and most important need of all is the physiological needs. It is the most basic and important needs in the hierarchy. It is also view as the needs to survive. It includes the fundamental biological needs such as food, air and shelter. One must have food to consume, water to drink and a place to stay for survive. They must fulfill all these needs before they think of other things. Without fulfilling these needs, a person will not be able of think straight and pay attention. If these needs are met, then only a person will move on to the second level. After physiological needs is safety needs. Once a person has fulfilled the physiological needs, he or she will then move to the safety needs. Safety needs refer to the need of free from any threats and harm in term of physically, mentally and emotionally. For instance, job security. After fulfilling the physiological needs where they can survive on their own, they will then think of securing their job and support themselves. Social needs follow by safety needs. It also known as love needs. Social needs refer to the need to be affiliated and loved. The need of being accepted and needed by others. This level can be met through relationship with family, friends, peers and people who that person interact with. Successful relationship will then help the individual to meet those needs and proceed to the next level which is the esteem needs (Loh et al.,

The term motivation is derived from the Latin word movere, meaning "to move." Basically motivation is a force which is acting on or within a person that cause the arousal, direction, and persistence of any goal. Motivation theory is thus concerned with the processes that explain why and how human behavior is activated.

In 1959, Fredrick Herzberg propounded the two factor theory of motivation. In this theory if a factor does not satisfy neither does it dissatisfy. The opposite of satisfaction is not dissatisfaction. His theory was based on identifying two different aspects of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction- motivators and hygiene factors.

These five needs are grouped into two categories; high-order needs (social esteem, self actualization) and low-order needs (psychological and safety). Once the lower level needs are satisfied, one can progress on to satisfying the higher level needs, the highest one being self-actualization. The uppermost level is known as growth or being needs while the other

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs was one of the first theories used to describe motivation. The theory is described through a pyramid with six levels. In order to move on to the next level in the pyramid the level below needs to be completely satisfied. These five levels in order are physiological needs, safety needs, belongingness

Motivation is a term that refers to a process that elicits, controls, and sustains certain behaviors. For instance: An individual has not eaten, he or she feels hungry, as a response he or she eats and diminishes feelings of hunger. Motivation is a general term for a group of phenomena that affect the nature of an individual's behaviour, the strength of the behaviour, and the persistence of the behaviour

However, in order to accomplish these goals, those five needs are required to fulfill. There are five levels in a triangle and each level represents a goal or one of our needs. The pyramid structure can be break down into five levels. The most basic need is physiological needs, which appears at the bottom, defined as things we need to survive. For next step up is the safety needs, which can be described as people’s need to have a security place to live and work. The former two needs we mentioned are categorized as basic or lower needs. In the middle level is the emotional needs or the belonging needs, which refers to our willingness to have a sense of belonging or build relationship with surrounding people. Next level is esteem needs, which are things that make us feel good or significant. Each time a lower needs is fulfilled, you then can move up to the next needs until you reach the top, which is self-actuation. According to Maslow, self-actualization indicates that people are eager to achieve humans full potential and reach out of the world. The latter two needs that Maslow hierarchy chart show are higher needs. Therefore, Maslow’s hierarchical needs theory mainly focuses on what actually motivates people to do the things they do, to behave the way they behave.

One pioneer in motivation theory, Frederick Herzberg posited that the only way to motivate employees long-term is to give them challenging work where they can assume responsibility. According to Herzberg there are two dimensions to jib satisfaction: motivation and hygiene. Hygiene refers to variables that relate to an employee’s environment such as company policies, supervision, salary and working conditions. Herzberg perceived the hygiene factors not as motivators, but as areas of potential dissatisfaction. Herzberg claimed that if employers satisfactorily address hygiene issues, there is greater employee satisfaction.